Conflicts of interest? Dr. Mehmet Oz owns 150,000 option shares in vaccine technology company
by Mike Adams
NaturalNews.com Editor
11/11/09
Dr. Mehmet Oz is a huge promoter of vaccines. He’s been on television reinforcing fear about H1N1 swine flu and telling everyone to get vaccinated. But what he didn’t tell his viewing audience is that he holds 150,000 option shares in a vaccine company that could earn him millions of dollars in profits as the stock price rises. It is in Dr. Oz’s own financial interest, in other words, to hype up vaccines and get more people taking them so that his own financial investments rise in value.
Evidence describing these facts was delivered to NaturalNews by a private investigator named Joseph Culligan (http://webofdeception.com/oprah.html#oz). That evidence includes an SEC document detailing how Dr. Oz. bought options on stocks for SIGA Technologies in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. SIGA Technologies (stock symbol SIGA) is a vaccine technology company with many advanced developments whose success depends on the widespread adoption of vaccines. According to SEC documents, Dr. Mehmet Oz. currently holds 150,000 option shares on SIGA Technologies, purchased for as little as $1.35 back in 2005.
At the time of this writing, SIGA Technologies is trading at $7.10, making those options bought in 2005 worth $5.75 in profits today. If all the 150,000 options purchased by Dr. Oz. were exercised today, they would be worth roughly $180,000 in profits (they were bought at different prices, not all at $1.35). This is all revealed in what the SEC website calls an “insider transaction” document (link below).
These options won’t expire until the years 2015 – 2019, and the higher the stock price of SIGA gets before then, the more profit can be realized when these options are cashed out. You can see the 2019 expiration date in this “insider transaction” form: http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
If the stock price of SIGA Technologies could be pumped up even more — say, from someone hyping up vaccines in front of a national audience — these options could mathematically be worth millions of dollars. Just to clarify, by the way, SIGA Technologies doesn’t currently manufacture a vaccine for H1N1 swine flu. It focuses on future vaccine technologies that could be applied to many different vaccines down the road.
Dr. Oz. isn’t merely a holder of SIGA stock options, by the way: he’s on the Board of Directors! As SIGA’s own website explains, Dr. Oz has served on the board since 2001 and continues his role there today. This brings up the obvious question:
Is it right for someone talking about whether vaccines are safe on television to also be carrying stock options and serving on the board of directors of a vaccine company at the same time?
Just to make things a little more interesting, SIGA Technologies recently received a $3 million grant in taxpayer dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The purpose of the grant money? To fund the study of a chemical adjunct named ST-246 to be used in future vaccines. So taxpayer money is now being used to fund a vaccine technology company whose stock price increases will financially benefit the very celebrity doctor who is hyping up vaccines to a national audience.
Something sounds fishy here…
Conflict of interest?
To my knowledge, Dr. Oz. has never disclosed to his viewing audience the fact that he owns 150,000 option shares of SIGA Technologies. And yet, with an audience of millions, Dr. Oz has continued to beat the drum of the vaccine industry, urging people to get vaccinated while implying that vaccines protect people from swine flu (even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence to back up that claim).
Here’s a link to the SEC document detailing Dr. Oz’s ownership of these 150,000 option shares…
The article continues with more links here.